OSU is very unusual in the transparency of its admission numbers on a weekly basis. If you read industry publications you would learn that it is not alone in its sudden increased admit rate for Fall 2020.
Higher ed has been turned on its ear because of this crisis. Some of the stimulus money is earmarked for higher ed and schools are busy applying for that $ right now. Weaker colleges won’t survive this. ALL are seeing numbers right now which are not what they are used to seeing. I would be more worried about sending my student to a school which won’t survive the year or which will have to lay off staff and faculty, personally. OSU, and other schools with a strong reputation and relatively low price tag, are able to fill a normal class next year. Others will not be so lucky.
Projected yield rates have changed dramatically. Studies show that a significant proportion of students are making an altered college decision based on finances. If OSU is forced to have online classes next Fall, that means all or nearly all will (the liability would be too great, otherwise). Some colleges will be well-equipped to do this, others will not.
Would my son be happy about that? No, not at all. Far from ideal. But certainly OSU will be better at delivering education in that way than most, given its size, resources and being the flagship of the one of the biggest states.
@Pelorider I was just wondering what Kittycat would do with the information, like if it would change their choice of school for the fall.
I will say, I have a son at Virginia Tech who massively over-enrolled last year (by accident; first year taking the coalition app) and they made it work. Some crazy solutions, but they made it work and I actually didn’t hear much complaining from freshmen parents. But I do think cypresspat is right. Enrollments are completely up in the air right now and normal models don’t apply.
@Pelorider@cypresspat@rbc2018 All good points…think we are going to send an email to ask about dramatic increase in acceptance rate…don’t think we will really get an answer but you never know. And at least as parents we will feel like we did our homework. Hope to get an email out in next few days or so…but somehow we are busier than ever even during quarantine! If we receive any info, I will post it here.
Hope everyone surviving with this crazy difficult time…good luck to all!
@momzilla2D That actually puts it more in perspective. I was a math major a LONG time ago and should have been able to figure that out myself but my brain not working anymore haha. Thanks for calming me down!
I am very curious to see how those admissions split between IS, OOS, and International. My guess is they are also counting on more IS and less International enrollees and possibly less returning International students.
@cypresspat , that is my struggle…do we just have our daughter go to our state school for a year and then she can try to transfer? I know she wouldn’t be at all happy about that, otherwise I would just do that now. If I knew that she could start at our state school and then in a year could for sure go to OSU, then that would make the decision a bit easier. My daughter loves OSU and really wants to go there. My husband and I are torn. If we had a scholarship to OSU it would make me feel better, but we don’t. :-(. Our state school is well-regarded and similarly able to support the switch to online learning for $18k less in tuition. My daughter also has 7 other options where, due to scholarships, tuition would be between $10-$15 less than OSU. I thought the stress of school decisions was over in January, yet here we are again. Stinks, but I AM grateful that my family and friends are alive and well during this global crisis. I have to remember that in the scheme of things, this decision is not life or death and will one day be in the rearview mirror. I do want my daughter to have a great experience so she can grow and learn, but hopefully she and all other incoming Freshman will have 3+ years for that since this should be under control by their sophomore year.
My Son got direct admit at IU Bloominton Luddy school of Computer Science and recently received admission at OSU as pre CIS major. My Son wants to go to OSU but I feel IU Bloominton might be a better fit for him in terms of program, being in a college town, distance from home etc. Both will be OOS for us and not much scholarship. I am really struggling to make a decision. Eventually it is going to be what my Son wants, but I want to make sure it is the right decision for him. Any guidance is appreciated, thanks!
@Sruthil Well first of all computer science (CS) and computer information science (CIS) are two different majors with a heavier focus on math and science in CS and a broader more liberal arts education in CIS. However, how the pre-major works at OSU is that starting first or second semester, you apply for the major you want so really your son would have a lot of flexibility in terms of deciding exactly what major he’d want to pursue. But in an overall comparison to IU, OSU is generally regarded as a more reputable and higher ranked school for computer science and on top of that, OSU tuition is a few thousand dollars cheaper than IU’s. So in my opinion, it sounds like OSU is overall the better choice, especially since your son already wants to go there to begin with. Hope this helps!
@Cheeringsection yes, I am curious as well about the IS/OOS split in the increased OSU acceptances. If it’s slanted towards IS, then the schools will be losing revenue. To me, it would make more sense to admit more OOS and then give some scholarships where they would still net more revenue than they would with IS students. Anyone know if at some point OSU publishes their IS/OOS/Int’l mix? Maybe in their annual reports?
OOS students who were deferred and later admitted to Ohio State after Feb 2020, did you receive any scholarships? if yes, can you please share your ACT and GPA stats? thanks!
@Pelorider I definitely feel your pain. If my son hadn’t been so uber-focused on OSU, we could have been having to choose between OSU, a top-dollar private where we would have been full pay, and a not-cheap other state flagship 2000 miles away. In January I would have had one opinion, right now, totally different.
We would have pushed VERY hard for OSU.
This is a TOUGH call. My son is so in love with OSU that while he’d be bummed to not be on campus in the Fall, he would know that spring semester is right around the corner. If we wanted him even closer and insisted he go to one of the other state schools, he would be deflated. However…there would be no financial difference and our only reason to do that would be to have him within an hours drive. I think most kids, though, will understand that these are unique times and that few people are going to get what they want this year. Making a financial sacrifice to send a kid to any school right now, when there are very good alternatives, is a risk. Come to think of it, most colleges will have some potential negative experiences (except those with gigantic endowments). Some schools will be forced to do distance learning but will never get good at it. Some will have hugely over subscribed majors, and others deeply under subscribed. Some will be forced to have triples in the double rooms. Some will take such a huge financial hit they will need to lay off faculty and staff. Just hard to know what will happen at which schools.
I wish I had better insight for you…but no one knows what May will look like. And definitely not June. All of us class of 2024 parents are pretty anxious right now, I think. What has been true for college-bound kids for 100+ years will not be true for our kids. Totally stinks.
Some are not happy with the admission rate this cycle and I believe they will get unhappier as time goes and Ohio State needs to fill its class. A few notes:
Most universities did not factor in this crisis and I’m betting most had to react last minute so expect a lot of the Ivies to have smaller classes if they don’t take more off the waitlist
International students freshman: most if not all will not show up this fall that’s around 650 students to fill at Ohio State
The summer melt will be terrible to manage as students get off the waitlist at higher ranked schools, parents cant afford OOS tuition, and IF fall becomes online.
Continuing students will also be hard to manage and talking to my kids at other universities they are starting to see their international student friends leave and those might not be back in the fall. Same goes with domestic students my son is tracking his 3 roommates as two might not be able to come back.
So much uncertainty that’s why Cornell decided that they will stop giving details on freshman acceptance
They are in panic mode BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO FILL ALL THE DORMS. Keep in mind, that many sophomores and many might not return due to financial concerns. Same with many freshmen. If they can get some waitlisted or deferred students to pay full OOS tuition, they have a win-win situation for admitting so many students. IMHO, They have worked very hard to become a somewhat selective school and a reputable school for so many years and for the sake of money, they are now throwing that selectivity out of the window. This is no way minimizing anybody’s admission, but I honestly do not see many schools doing it at the level of OSU.
At this point, OSU is not looking to give money. They are looking to get money, For those who have been recently admitted, do not expect any scholarships. The amount of students they have admitted this year has come into question and many are choosing to go somewhere else unless a scholarship was awarded early on. Obviously, the admissions department knows what they need to do in order to get a class together which is usually 8000 plus students. Being a State school, they know the economic impact this is going to have so they are playing a numbers game. But as the poster above has mentioned, money seems to be the driving force.